12 Warriors, Adventurers With Really Loud Green Messages

There are some powerful voices that have paved the way for us here at TreeHugger. Voices that rose above the chatter and made huge waves, felt around the world. Many of these voices come from people are close to nature, the outdoors; people who are risk-takers and thrill-seekers and wow us with their fearlessness, their ability to pioneer the way. These are the eco-warriors, the environmental activists and adventurers who fight for causes and demand change, heedless of costs to themselves. Here are 12 that we really admire.

David de Rothschild

Earth First's # 1 Hottest Guy in Green, David de Rothschild, is departing on an homage to the Pacific crossing of the Thor Heyerdahl Kontiki Expedition in March 2009. De Rothschild will embark on a fourth-month journey across the Pacific, from San Francisco to Sydney, on a raft built from plastic bottles and other recycled materials. With the voyage, de Rothchild aims to demonstrate what people can achieve with recycled "junk." En route, he is planning to stop by the "Eastern Garbage Patch" in the Northern Pacific, drawing attention to one of the most bizarre signposts of our consumerist culture.

Rothschild's fame developed from his wild expeditions. He crossed the Arctic from Russia to Canada and is one of only 14 people to have ever traversed Antarctica. He also organized an expedition of artists to the rainforests in Ecuador to highlight damage caused by oil drilling. The resulting exhibition was appropriately titled "the Ecuador Block 16" for the area of rainforest the team had visited.

Teddy Roosevelt

Photo via old-photos.blogspot.comTeddy Roosevelt, the United State's first conservation-minded president established the first national park in 1902 (the Crater Lake National Park in Oregon) and created the National Park Service. He preserved 230 million acres of national land and set a conservation ethos for the American people. He was known for saying "the movement for the conservation of wildlife and the larger movement for the conservation of all out natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method."

John Muir

Photo via John Muir Elementary SchoolJohn Muir, the Scottish born Naturalist who founded the Sierra Club in 1892, viewed livestock as threats to the Yosemite area, calling sheep "hoofed locusts." Muir broke off his friendship with Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the United States Forest Service, when Pinchot supported grazing in forest reserves. He is credited with getting Congress to pass a bill making Yosemite National Park one of the first wilderness parks in the U.S.